Perfectly Good Reasons Not to Like Paul Genslinger
by 123serendipitee
Summary: True, Nick decided he didn't like the guy before he ever even met him. But after he did, he thought he had some perfectly legit reasons to back up his bias.
1. Chapter 1

Why _didn't _he like Paul?

It was a good question.

Nick had tried to make to her feel like it _wasn't _a good question, but it was. One that continued to niggle away at him, and so he started making a mental list, because he was pretty sure he had some legit reasons.

Hey, it beat thinking about her going down to China Town and slicing off a piece of her pumpkin pie for the guy.

He most often thought of Paul as "the guy".

**Perfectly Good Reason to Dislike the Guy, #1:****  
He ruined Dudesgiving.**

Jess had come stumbling into the loft, looking possibly cuter and happier than he'd ever seen her look (and that was saying something, since "cute" and "happy" were basically the two first words anyone would use to describe Jess. Although, once they got to know her at all, flat-out WEIRD might also be an option.)

She was carrying a huge turkey, and announcing that she was altering their UNcelebration plans by inviting a guy she worked with over for Thanksgiving.

A "really hot" guy.

And Nick had immediately disliked him.

_"I don't like the guy."_

_"Nick, don't you think you're being a little irrational? You haven't even met him yet!" Schmidt's stance on the issue had done a 180 since Jess had promised to invite Cece over too, so Nick just rolled his eyes at him._

_"I'm with Nick," Winston agreed, "I say again, mark my words, this guy is going to end up being our fifth roommate, and we won't even have a say in the matter."_

_Nick again felt the need to remind him, "It's just a first date Winston. I'm sure things aren't going to get that crazy". And he studiously refused to explore the sinking sensation he felt in his heart every time Winston said that._

_"Do you know what your problem is, Nick?" Schmidt was asking, and for a terrifying second Nick was struck with the cold fear that the emotions he was afraid to acknowledge even to himself were clearly and horribly obvious to everyone else in the loft._

_"I don't think I have a problem," he answered too quickly. "I was just really excited about Dudesgiving, that's all." This earned a double-take from Winston, but hey, he was desperate to try to distract Schmidt._

_No such luck._

_"Your problem," Schmidt continued ruthlessly, "Is that Jess is completely showing you up at this whole 'recovering from heartbreak' thing."_

_"Huh?"_

_"Look at her, she was living with Spencer for SIX years, and he cheated on her, which she discovered in the most humiliating way possible. Everything about her breakup was worse than yours, in every way. But look how great she's doing!"_

_Nick gave him a turtleface, and Schmidt continued, "She went out on a rebound date, she's not NEARLY as disfunctional as she was when she first moved in, and now she actually had the nerve to invite a guy she likes out on a date..."_

_"Can we really even call this a date at all?" Nick mumbled._

_"...while YOU, my friend, have nothing to show for your own post-breakup history but a couple of aborted rolls in the hay..."_

_"TO BE FAIR," Nick interjected, "the fact that they were aborted was NOT my choice or fault!"_

_But now Winston was chiming in. "You know, Schmidt's right. You've been moping around this apartment like a grumpy bear for long enough, and frankly, it's making me dread coming home sometimes. Seriously dude. You need to get yourself out there..."_

_"...meet some new girls..."_

_"...live a little..."_

_"...GET YOU SOME..."_

_"**JAR**," Winston said, before continuing seamlessly, "Find someone to...you know...**like**!"_

_Nick winced at the soft note of something that came way too close to sympathy in Winston's voice, and said defensively, "For your information, both of you, there **is **someone I'm interested in these days!"_

_His roommates were suddenly avid._

_"Really?"_

_"Who is she?"_

_"Where did you meet her?"_

_"Is she hot?"_

_"See, that's a reason I haven't...brought her home yet. I knew you guys would be all over her like flies. She's a great girl, who I really like, and we're taking it slow. That's all I'm gonna tell you."_

_"'Taking it slow,'" Schmidt repeated to Winston, with eyebrows raised in significance. "That means no gitchie goo yet. No wonder he's been so frustrated and crabby lately."_

_"EWWWWW, 'gitchie goo', really? JAR Schmidt!"_

_"What? 'Gitchie goo' is what my grandpa called it! Are you saying my grandpa was a douche bag, too?"_

_"Let's just say that explains a lot, Schmidt...a whole lot!"_

_Nick listened to his roommates bicker, and thanked his lucky stars for the timely diversion. He was not prepared to answer any more questions about the girl who was completely under his skin these days. He couldn't get her out of his head, and he'd tried, OH, he'd tried. But every day she gave him some new reason to smile, and to find himself liking her more and more._

_No, Schmidt and Winston absolutely, positively must NOT be allowed to discover just how much he'd been finding himself crushing on Jess, lately._


	2. Chapter 2

**Perfectly Good Reason to Dislike the Guy, #2:****  
****He was NOT hot.**

He wasn't what any of them were expecting.

The Guy.

Jess had gone around all evening the night before warbling about how "HooOT!" he was, like a middle school girl amped up on the elicit perusal of her mom's hidden stash of bodice-ripping romance novels.

And so, naturally, Nick had wanted to punch him in the face before he ever even arrived.

And then the guy had walked in looking like an 8 year old on the way to his first Communion, and while Nick was temporarily a little more sympathetic to him as a result, that didn't last long, because of:

**Perfectly Good Reason to Dislike the Guy, #2b:  
**which was that, maybe the guy wasn't hot, but**  
****Jess thought that he WAS.**

Beautiful, beautiful Jess, who had no idea how beautiful she really was, because she was goofy, and her ex-boyfriend was an idiot, and her bestfriend was a frickin model, thought that this completely squirrelly geek was _hot._

Her face lit up with nervous excitement when he knocked on the door.

It lit up like goddam Wrigley's Field when he pulled out that goddam fiddle.

And when she'd begged him, "Please Nick...He's the only guy I've liked since Spencer", her voice had broken with a desperate sincerity, and something inside of him had broken, as well.

_The only guy she'd liked since Spencer._Well if that didn't just answer, with a rather horrible finality, weeks' worth of unasked questions and delusional imaginings, for him.

**Perfectly Good Reason to Dislike the Guy, #3:****  
****He called him freakin' "Nicholas".**

Only two people were allowed to call him Nicholas. His ma, and Jess. And at first, he wasn't sure about Jess.

But with time, he'd come to secretly love how naturally and affectionately his given name fell from her lips. Weird, since previously it had always reminded him of the implied threat in his mom's smoker's voice calling him in for the night from the upper floor of the row house he'd grown up in.

An odd trick of the memory, that association, and one that had become an ironically sentimental one to him over the years. And then darn if Jess hadn't shown up and brought in a whole new heart-tug of her own related to it.

Either way, there was a sweetness connected to the use of that name that Nick felt oddly protective of, and coming from this guy he'd just met? Well, it was a assumptive familiarity that Nick considered it perfectly reasonable to resent.

**Perfectly Good Reason to Dislike the Guy, #4:****  
****Jess wanted to have sex with him. Big time.**

How lucky could this geeky bastard be, anyway. It wasn't enough that she looked at him with freakin' stars in her eyes, Nick had also had to endure her reeling off a whole laundry list of Jessified (of course) ways that she wanted to fuck the guy.

But then, he'd been the one to start it, by yelling, "Does it matter what I think? Because I'm not the one who has to have sex with him, am I?"

And if she (or anyone) had stopped to think about it at all (and thank goodness, no one had seemed to), those words totally gave him away, right there. Jess and sex. That's pretty much all that had been on his mind lately. And now, the idea of Jess? having sex with THIS GUY? He just thought he'd been living in hell. This put a whole new perspective on how sweet his previous torture had really been.

So Nick had stood there, wanting to punch a hole in Miss Beverly's door, and wondering what Jess would think if he'd stopped her and told her the truth, which was that he was pretty sure that he had already screwed her senseless in over half those ways, in his head, as she lay unsuspecting in her bed across the hall each night.

_"I can't even stomach thinking about her having sex, at all" he lied. "I mean, come on, it's JESS."_

_The guys were lugging their still-uneaten Thanksgiving feast back from the House of Death. The loft was slightly less smokey now, but a sickening smell lingered, like burnt tennis shoes and the time he accidentally left a package of hot dogs locked up in his car over a really hot weekend._

_They'd left the girls sitting on the floor in the hallway, with Cece comforting Jess over her disasterous date, and as soon as the door closed behind them in privacy, Schmidt and Winston had begun gleefully recalling Jess's colorful descriptions of the various sexual moves she was ready to bust out on Paul._

_Which Nick really, really didn't want to have to think about any more than he already knew he was endlessly going to. And so he said:_

_"You guys are twisted. I can't even stomach thinking about her having sex at all. I mean, come on, it's JESS. It's like thinking about your little sister doing it, or something."_

_"Your little sister, seriously?" Schmidt asked incredulously. "You mean to tell me that you've never thought about Jess getting it on?"_

_A little spark of hope flared somewhere inside Nick. "Have you?"_

_"Well sure! Winston?"_

_"Hmmmm. Right after I moved here I had a sex dream about her. I mean, it was a weird dream-she had raccoon hands-but still, it was a sex dream."_

_"Nick," Schmidt continued doggedly, "You mean to tell me that you've lived with her and her short skirts for three months now, and have never once jacked off while thinking about her."_

_Schmidt and Winston were looking at him like that would be the most natural thing in the world, and **not** in fact the act of a creepy perv of a roommate, so Nick shrugged casually, "Sure, lots of times." And damn, it felt good to admit it, to just get the truth out there, even if it was just the partial truth. Because he felt compelled to further discredit those feelings by adding, "But come on, **Jess**? In real life? Having sex with a...you know...**real person**?"_

_"I'm not sure Paul's a real person," Winston laughed._

_"Seriously, he's like a wooden puppet who's been granted his most heart-felt wish of becoming a Human Boy..." added Schmidt. But they were making fun of the guy and laughing with a fond affection. Nick pulled a turtle face. It was way too early for them to be making fun of the guy with fond affection._

_They made another trip through the hallway for another load, and when he glanced sheepishly at Jess, she and Cece were glaring him down. Seemed they'd decided that somehow it was HIS fault that the dryer had exploded, and that their elderly neighbor had died while sitting on the can. He shrugged philosophically. He had it coming to him, he supposed. Goodness knows, he'd chosen to blame Jess for more ridiculous things._

_Once they were filling up their arms again, Winston continued the conversation, "Seriously Nick, don't you think they're perfect for each other?"_

_"They **are**, that's what's so creepy! They're like conjoined twins that were separated and then adopted out to families on the opposite sides of town. Now they've finally met and are creepily hooking up with one another unawares. The moment they realize their scars match up we'll hear their screams piercing the night."_

_Schmidt stopped what he was doing to say, "Ok, very colorful Nick, but you seem to have an incest theme going on here today, to which even I have to say: EW! And two," he resumed stacking casserole bowls up the length of one arm, "I'm with Winston. If you sat down with Dr. Frankenstein, a state of the art computer program stolen from the FBI, and an elaborate system of algorithms and amalgamisms, you could not create a more perfect person for Jess than Paul Genslinger."_

_"I guess," muttered Nick, knowing that pressing the issue any further would tip his hand for sure. Because:_

_**Perfectly Good Reason to Dislike the Guy, #4b:  
****Paul was going to get to have sex with Jess.**_

_**And he wasn't.**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Perfectly Good Reason to Dislike the Guy, #5****  
Whether he wanted to admit it or not, those two really were perfect for each other.**

Deep down, Nick knew Schmidt and Winston were right.

Paul and Jess got each other's jokes. The stupid kind that no one else even understood. Hell, they practically had their own language, doubtless the language of the mutual planet they both hailed from originally.

A planet where everyone went around singing about everything they were doing.

Planet Musical.

Where playing the violin was apparently a panty-melter.

_It was the end of the worst Thanksgiving ever, which probably meant that someday they would all look back and laugh themselves silly over it. But none of them were there, yet._

_Paul and Cece had gone their own ways after the Black Friday madness, and the quartet of roommates had returned home in exhausted near-silence. They'd shut all the windows and then gathered around the table eating the re-warmed remains of their truncated holiday meal, and even Schmidt was too tired and hungry to complain about the congealing consistency of nuked gravy._

_Jess was the only one with much to say at all, so she was still finishing her last couple of bites when Schmidt and Winston went off to bed._

_Nick, who had been killing time by building a abstract construct of mashed potatoes and green beans, spoke up when they were finally left alone. "Jess, I'm sorry I was such a jerk today."_

_He'd redeemed himself earlier by giving up his place in line for Paul, and so now she just chose to tease him with gentle sarcasm, "Were you a jerk? I didn't even notice!" She stood up and began carrying their plates into the kitchen, so he followed suit._

_"Paul seems...he seems...nice."_

_"He IS nice."_

_He scraped, while she began running a little soapy water._

_"I mean, **I **wouldn't want to date him, but he seems...perfect for you."_

_Jess smiled happily, and agreed, "He really is, isn't he?"_

_She washed, he dried._

_"So," Nick continued doggedly, although he was really talking sternly to himself more than anything, at this point, "I'll try to be happy for you."_

_"Thanks Nick!" She was drying her hands on a dish towel and smiling at him in that angelically forgiving way that he always knew he didn't deserve._

_And about the time he was thinking how easy it would be to just lean in and kiss her, she reached out and patted his cheek. She patted his damn cheek. The absent-minded way an indulgent sister would._

_And as she started back to bed, the tune she was humming under her breath was the damn fiddle dee dee that Paul had been playing all day._

_Nick couldn't play the violin._

_Damn, he couldn't even play the damn kazoo._

_And he remembered how surprised and happy and hopeful Jess looked when that tune had drifted over the crowd at Best Buy. And later the way she'd grabbed Paul's hand, pulling him along after her, so easily and casually, as if Nick hadn't been unsuccessfully navigating the heavenly impossibility of holding her hand for weeks now, in his head._

_Then she and Paul had laughed and skipped and sung their way across that damn parking lot like a couple of six year old kids, as if the world **wasn't **watching, and wasn't wondering what kind of drugs they were on. Because Jess had finally found her perfect match...someone else who spoke her language...someone else who woke up everyday NOT afraid to just be happy...and fearless...to dance...and to just reach out and take what they wanted from life._

**Perfectly Good Reason to Dislike the Guy, #6:**

**_He could never be that guy._  
**


End file.
